Eleven Days
by starryjules
Summary: By the end of one particularly destructive and terrifying night, nearly every breakable item in Tony's apartment lay in pieces, he had eleven stitches running up his forearm, and Gibbs had confiscated his weapons for a week. That was eleven days after Tony heard the words Damocles and No Survivors. A Somalia/summer 2009 drabble.


**OK so I posted this as a little drabble over on Tumblr based off a photo-prompt. (I've used it here for the story pic if you're curious) I didn't plan on posting it on FF since it was so short, BUT the amazing idinamandalexclaudiacote has turned it into an audiofic. And I know not everyone on here is a tumblr fan, so I thought I'd cross-post so that 1) you're aware of how seriously amazing her audiofics recordings are and 2) you can read OR listen to this one, and I find that just so incredibly COOL! :) **

**You can find the audiofic and many more at Sound Cloud, user name: Sharinat**

**All that said - this is pretty dark...sparked entirely off of one tiny part I put into another of my fics. **

* * *

_And Gibbs… well, Gibbs had, in fact, only been to his apartment once. Tony didn't even remember listing him as an emergency contact on his lease renewal, but his landlord certainly did and made a point of calling the older man after one particularly destructive and terrifying night. By the end of it, nearly every breakable item in Tony's apartment lay in pieces, he had eleven stitches running up his forearm, and Gibbs had confiscated his weapons for a week._

_That was eleven days after Tony heard the words Damocles and no survivors._

_~His Sanctuary_

* * *

He is fascinated by the contrast of crimson against ivory, the way it glides under his fingers, how it drips in between the keys and emerges as a melancholy melody. It seems such a fitting tribute to her: beauty and blood. He can see her face swimming before his blurred vision, or maybe it's just the reflection of lights - so many lights - sparkling on the ground around him. After all, she was his radiance, his bright spot against so much death and darkness.

The twinkling shards of his grandmother's crystal bowl - he's sure they hold the image of her that first day in the bullpen. Wild and seductive and mysterious. If only he knew then what he knows now.

_28th of May._

The jagged remnants of a brandy snifter - they reflect her face, too close to his as they hide in a dark closet, their chests pounding out a strange double-rhythm as they wait for the guards outside to pass. The dim light from the hallway reflects in her eyes, those damn eyes that bewitch and beguile him.

_Off the coast of Somalia._

The shattered picture frame at his feet - he knows this is the only real face in the room. A snapshot of them both at a nameless bar, taken by Abby when they were too drunk, too happy to notice. That was three weeks before California. Before Jenny. Before Israel and the beginning of the end.

_No survivors._

A smile here, a wink there, a gaze so intense he can't possibly look away. The melody shifts, and he feels an irrational fear that he is no longer in control of the music; the blood has taken over the movement of the keys and he's being dragged along in its current.

_No survivors._

She's all around him, everywhere he looks, closing in, drowning him in memories, drowning herself in a black bottomless ocean.

_No survivors._

_No survivors._

_No -_

"Tony."

He jumps at the quiet voice, and the music is suddenly gone, the ghosts sinking back into the glittering diamonds on his floor.

"Hi boss."

He hears the careful crunch of shoes over glass and glances over his shoulder to see Gibbs moving slowly towards him. But the older man doesn't meet his eyes. Instead he surveys the destruction around them, the scarlet gash in Tony's left forearm that now drips steadily to the floor with a little _tap, tap, tap_ (a metronome, too late for the music that has disappeared).

And the glint of the Sig perched carefully, delicately atop the piano. It occupies the exact space recently vacated by her photo.

"Your landlord called." A step closer.

"That was nice of him."

"Lucky it wasn't the police." And another.

"Lucky, that's me."

"You need a doctor." Another, and then perfect stillness. Perfect silence.

"I need her."

A steady hand closes around the grip of the gun a scant second before his - fingertips fall harmlessly away, leaving a streak bright and shimmering red across the older man's skin.

A sigh then - whose, he does not know - and Gibbs finally meets his eyes. "Tony, would you really have…"

She smirks at him from just over Gibbs' shoulder. _Not worth dying over. I'll remember that._

_What if I said it was?_

Tony's eyes remain on her even as he answers Gibbs. "Now you'll never know."


End file.
